Podcasting Q&A

Grow your podcast with Instagram

August 16, 2021 Buzzsprout
Podcasting Q&A
Grow your podcast with Instagram
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Simone from the Memoirs From Abroad podcast asks, "How can I use Instagram to engage with my audience and get more listeners?"

TL;DR
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, but how can podcasters use it to engage with their audience and find new listeners?

In this episode, Ona and Travis discuss what's working right now on Instagram and how to create a comprehensive Instagram strategy.

Links from this episode:


Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

Review Podcasting Q&A in Podchaser or Apple Podcasts to let us know what you think of the show.

Travis:

In today's episode, you're gonna learn how to use Instagram to grow your podcast. Welcome to Podcasting, Q&A, revealing the best tips and strategies to launch grow and monetize your show. on it. I are going to be answering a question from Simone.

Simone:

Hello, my name is Simone and I have a podcast called memoirs from abroad, I'm trying to find the best way to market my travel podcast within Instagram, mostly because there's so many travelers using Instagram to post pictures and videos. So I want to figure out how to engage more people through Instagram. And then how do I become more interactive with my listeners? Like, I would like to engage my listeners more on Instagram. And if I ask a question, I would love for them to answer it more and more. Thank you so much.

Travis:

Thanks for your question, Simone. Now Ona I kno that social media has a lot o potential when it comes t building an engaged audience growing just the number o people who know who you are o the internet, and then als growing your podcast. But I kno for a lot of people Instagra can be really confusing to like you post things and they don' work and nobody comments, an nobody likes your shares, wha are some things that we shoul avoid? When it comes t Instagram, don'

Ona:

forget the social and social media. I think oftentimes people are utilizing these schedulers and all these other tools that have been created to help with the content creation process and social media management. But in actuality, they're hurting you in the past, you could schedule something and let it post automatically, they could add the hashtags for you and all of those things, and it would be no problem. But now there's a whole process where the expectation is that you need to like engage at least two hours before you post something and two hours after. So that means like, this is how the algorithm shows that you're active, you're showing interest, and your audience feels engaged to what you're doing. So you don't want a situation to where you're just posting things and forgetting, you want to make sure you're actually being social, responding to comments, responding to DMS and having interactive conversations with your audience.

Travis:

So if you want to get more organic reach with the things that you're posting, don't just log in, post the fixture, put a comment and then caption, then you're done. Like, actually go through your previous posts, interact with people, answer direct messages, then post then keep interacting with people to show that you're actually like engaging on the platform, and Instagram is going to reward that

Ona:

exactly. But I would actually say you want to be engaging with people on their own pages. And so it's not just going through your comments, but it's actually going to their page. And so I always look at it like this, when you are engaging with someone and you're showing them that you like their content, they're in turn going to want to come visit your page and do the same thing. So it's really like a reciprocal thing, where it's not just like, oh, give me give me give me, which is what a lot of people do on social media where it's like, hey, I want you to come look at me, and then I'm going to go so well, that doesn't really feel nice. And I think of it like in real life in real life, you wouldn't just walk up and be like, Hey, can you come like watch me over here? And then the person is like, Can I help you? And so it's the same concept. I always say, like, treat social media as if the people were right in front of you. And that will help and you're guiding for it.

Travis:

Gotcha. And that makes a lot of sense. Because I know, for a lot of podcasters and I think I'm use social media, they're just thinking, it's a means to an end so I can get more listeners on my podcast. And so the mindset is, well, how do I just get more followers? How many things wanting to post 20? Do stories reels like whatever I got to do to make my page my Instagram account larger that will help me and you're saying Actually, it's showing up to serve and actually engage in a more community like fashion? that's ultimately what leads to people discovering you and wanting to engage with your content.

Ona:

Exactly. So in everything, you don't want it to be me, me, me, me, me. When people can tell that that's all you're here for, to shouldn't just be about your podcast. I think that's the other mistake that I see people make all the time where it's like, hey, new podcast episode just launched. Here's the link in my bio to listen. Alright, hello to you, too. Sir. How are you doing today? I'm so you want to kind of go a little bit deeper than that. You want to provide like insights to yourself as the host, you want to kind of show some of the behind the scenes elements and sprinkle in your podcast episodes, because that's the thing with podcasting, people are listening because they're connected with the host. You want to let them see more of you so they can feel that connection, and in turn, want to actually go support what you're doing.

Travis:

I know there's a lot of things that you can do on Instagram now to engage the people that already follow your accounts, and to find new followers, whether it's hashtags, regular posts, stories, reels. It seems like every other week, there's a new feature on Instagram, what are the features that you're seeing that are working right now as far as building engagement with your audience and then also reaching new people

Ona:

the number one thing is reels reels are really the big thing right now. And for some people they spend 15 hours sometimes creating reels. It is a lot of work, however it has huge results and the things that do really well can be like behind the scenes and splicing in some music into it. It's very engaging and also slightly addictive. If you've ever just like taking the time to like Go through the rails. Next thing you know, it's two o'clock in the morning, and you're supposed to be in bed already. And so it's one of those things that it really pulls people in. And it allows for easier discoverability. Because how the algorithm is working right now is that is pulling up real similar to each other based off of what your audience is already looking at. So if your audience is already engaging with somebody on that same niche topic, they're going to find you and they may not have ever known you existed. So that's something that I would highly recommend, whether it's doing one a month, I know they can feel awkward. They don't always have to be the dances because I know for me, I'm like, I'm not doing that. But there's other ways that you can do it to where it feels really engaging, but also provides insights for your audience. Another thing is guides and a lot of people are not utilizing this. And so guides is something that rolled out, I'd say probably earlier this year, and allows for you to kind of put together exactly that a guide on a specific topic. So let's say you have a doula podcast. And I don't know why this is what I always utilize as my example. But it's my go to, but let's say you have a doula podcast, and you're able to find all these resources about, you know, preparing for the hospital, you can easily put that into a guide. And this can be other people's content, it's not necessarily something you've created. It's other content that you found that is super helpful, super engaging, that you can put into a guy that is now on your page. Well, this increases your reach, because as their stuff gets more viewership, it helps you kind of be found as well. So I really like guides for helping you organize your content, but also the content that you're looking at that your audience may like as well, those two items I highly recommend. And then the other thing would be automated DMS. And so this is something that my audience has always been like, Oh my god, I love that every time like, when I first started following you, you personally sent me something saying welcome. So happy to have you here. Here are some things they don't recognize that it's actually a bot. But it makes people feel like engaged like that little bit. And this person has been following us for like a year, they felt really good about that. But the reason for this isn't just for the warm welcome. It's also because of the fact that you have to tell your audience what you want them to do when they follow you. And so usually people have to hear it seven different times. So that can be in your description. That could be the automated dm. So that could be the welcome message. Or it could be somebody that you see that Okay, wait, they're really following and paying attention to X, Y, and Z. And so by having these different touch points, and allows for your audience to know, oh, this is what I'm here for, not just to consume content, but to also kind of take it one step further and head over to your podcast listening platform.

Travis:

So it sounds like if you want to use Instagram to grow your podcast, you need to have like a strategy for Instagram and not just treat it like a billboard, to spam people with messages about new episodes.

Ona:

Correct.

Travis:

And so before we wrap up, is there a particular software that you recommend for the automated DMS cuz I know there's software out there for like scheduling posts like the buffers of the world? But what chat software? Do you recommend for people that want to have that welcome message that goes out automatically? Is that something right inside of Instagram? Or is that a third party software,

Ona:

one of the tools that I've utilized is called Institute I like it, because the fact that it really sends out quite a bit, but I really like the filters what I like using automated DNS for new followers, but also when we have something really big coming up, whether that's an event or an upcoming big launch, a new season, those type of things. The reason I pointed out what we use it for is don't use these all the time, because after a while you're going to lose your audience. They're going to feel like Okay, wait, you're spamming me with DMS. So you want to use it for special occasions. In those instances, instant zoom allows for you to have an option to say if somebody has not been active for several weeks, if they haven't posted anything, those type of things so that that way, you're not wasting your money. And for me, that's really important because keeping within budget matters,

Travis:

so we'll leave a link to that software in the description you go check it out, see if it's something that you want to utilize for your own Instagram account and utilize these tips definitely have an Instagram strategy. It can be a powerful social media platform to help you build an engaged audience. You just got to do it the right way. And now that Ana has shared all these bomb tips, you know exactly how to do it. Thanks for listening to Podcasting Q&A. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future episode, you can just go to speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout or clic the link in the show notes t leave us a brief audio message Podcasting Q&A is availab e both as a video and an audio p dcast. So if you enjoy watchin videos, make sure you subscri e to the Buzzsprout YouTube channel to get more content every single week. Or you can subscribe to Podcasting Q&A and your favorite podcast listeni g app. Well that's it for tod y. Thanks for listening and as lways, keep podcasting

Intro
"How do you grow with Instagram?"
Mistakes to avoid
How to grow on Instagram